


To Cure My Heart and Mind

by PsycheStar



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: BBH is a cleric/potion brewer, Dream is a creature here im sorry, Geroge is a tea grower, I will be adding tags and characters as the story progresses, M/M, Sapnap is a blacksmith, cleansing rituals, dealing with grief (or a lack thereof), george centric, mild poetic descriptions of violence, minecraft but it's realistic and also dark fantasy, relationships can be interpreted as romantic or platonic, subtle depictions of depression
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:48:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25936951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PsycheStar/pseuds/PsycheStar
Summary: The mountain held secrets. In its woods and misty ozone lies stories of beasts and monsters with limbs long and gangly, body covered in sooty fur, with twisted horns and sharp dagger claws. They say they ravage your mind before they ravage your corpse. They say if you wander too deep into the woods at night, you would be lucky if the elements found you first.They say the dreams come back to haunt you.Midway upon the journey of life, George finds a smiling face with black antlers and golden eyeshine. He sees it in a dream that follows him home one winter.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Darryl Noveschosch & Sapnap, Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), GeorgeNotFound & Darryl Noveschosch, GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 68





	1. Don’t leave me (though you always do)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [you lit a fire in my soul](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24628510) by [Yikes (CoralFlower)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoralFlower/pseuds/Yikes). 



> Did someone say a realistic minecraft story with in-depth lore, characterization, world building, and mythology? Also monster Dream?
> 
> No? ok.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His mother dreams about the past. It has come to haunt her.

The mountain held secrets. In its woods and misty ozone lies stories of beasts and monsters meant to scare children from misbehaving, from galavanting into the woods. But when the children are put to bed, the stories turn to whispered rumors, to hushed truths.

But there was a universality among them, a truth of truths. They say if you wander too deep into the woods at night, you would be lucky if the elements found you first.

-

When George was well old enough to be considered a man, just shy of twenty summers, the old bearded hunters would gather around the fireplace of the tavern and tell stories of whatever they saw in the woods covering the mountain. They called them the beasts of Mount Grimur. Creatures of shadow with limbs long and gangly, body covered in sooty fur, with twisted horns and sharp dagger claws.

Who walked like rolling mist and ate like blood was water. Faces of nightmares and teeth sharpened with whet stone and iron. They came like darkness and left like fog covered in gore and asbestos.

“And they’ve got eyes like dem foxes and wolves. Glows in the nights they do. Spotted one close to the village! But before I could get me axe, the darn thing scampered away.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t George’s cat?” Nick jested from beside George. The bar erupted in laughter, much to the old hunter’s chagrin.

He was a well known nut job in the village. People say his continuous encounters with the beasts caused him to go crazy and obsessed with capturing and killing one. Some say the beast visits him in his dreams. They hear him screaming in the night. They also call him batshit crazy.

“Now listen ‘ere ya green eared whippersnapper! Just yeh wait ‘til ya see one of ‘em! They’ll have yeh screamin’ to the hills!”

The bar got even louder with laughter. Even George let out a little chuckle. The funny thing was, it probably was his cat. He was a stray when he found him and didn’t like being cooped up in the house. So it was very likely that the old hunter stumbled upon the gray tabby in the night.

And every other weekend the men of the village gathered at the tavern for a pint and a chuckle, talking about the steady progress of the community. George was mostly there to get drunk with Nick and Darryl, the other two boys close to his age.

Nick, who was two years and some change younger, was the son of the village blacksmith. Despite his age he was a grower, already a solid inch or so taller than George, with caramel skin perpetually dotted in soot from the forges despite his aggressive scrub downs after work. He always manages to miss a spot somewhere. The white headband kept his singed black hair out of his eyes but never away from the fires that lick at his face.

He was brash and stubborn, always the rock that kept him afloat and the anchor that kept him grounded. Without him, George would have wandered into the woods a long time ago.

Darryl was two years and some change older, but he never truly acted like it. He was free spirited and kind to a fault, always helping, always bumbling about. He was also an excellent potion brewer. The little store right next to the church helps keep food on the table for him and his teacher, the town’s cleric. But even in his tight situation, the boy with russet hair and glasses too big for his face always manages to give, even if he had nothing to begin with.

He was a smile in perpetuity, a blanketing warmth, petrichor after a storm, and twinkling laughter. He was why George never thinks about wandering into the woods now.

They were laughing at something the butcher said. George didn’t catch it, he must have zoned out. So he quietly chuckles along, taking a sip of the mulled wine watered down with apple juice.

-

He must have gotten his aversion to people from his mother. She was polite and caring, but always distant, always cloaked in an air of sadness (he overheard from Nick’s mom and her friends when he was younger. People said it was such a tragic accident, a mineshaft collapsed). But she very much loved two things: George and her tea garden. She loved it best when they were combined. Every blossom of spring and right before the summer showers came, they would glean the tips of the rows upon rows of tea bushes.

Sometimes, when his mother deems them mature enough, they’ll pick the flowers from the garden. By the end of the day they’ll both smell like roses and chrysanthemums and it scents the sheets and the clothes that he wore that day. Then when summer rolls around they’ll smell like lavender and jasmine, and chamomile and hibiscus in the fall.

Then they’ll dry the leaves and flowers and package them pretty. They had an agreement with Ms. Kara that they can use the little shop she has attached to her house to sell his mother’s tea with her pastries.

Ms. Kara was kind to him and his mother, always buying a cup of tea after the day was over and chatting with his mother about the little things. She would give him a little treat as well, sometimes several to share with Nick and Darryl.

And he would explore the wilderness around the village with them until the sun caressed the horizon, among the tall grass and dirt hills.

-

When he was young, during his eleventh summer, he would play outside with the stray cats while his mother minded the shop and brewed the tea. He would say hi to Nick because his mother’s clippers need to be sharpened, and to Darryl because his mother needed a refill for her sleeping draughts. And when he comes back he’ll fall silent when the people who mill about the tea and pastry shop whisper about his mother’s cloak of sadness.

She smiles after serving them but they’ve become more taut and strained, getting smaller and smaller. Then they stopped.

Some days she’ll have trouble waking up. That left him to trim the bushes, prune the garden, dry the leaves, and package the tea (he had trouble discerning if the flowers were ready. He’s been picking the largest blossoms and so far no one was coming to him with complaints). The old women that whisper would ask why he was brewing tea all alone and he would tell them his mother wasn’t feeling well.

Nick would sometimes sit with him whenever he minded the shop. When the customers trickled to a stop (not like there were much to begin with), the boys would wander the outskirts of the village after picking Darryl up. The height of summer came and the grass patches smelled of wild flowers. The scent of lavender and jasmine still clung to him and it helped mask the stench of Nick’s sweat (which Darryl pointed out and Nick indignantly squawked at, which was the funniest thing ever). But the creek was cool and clear and helped stave the incessant heat. And washed away Nick’s filth.

One day, a gray tabby had settled against his leg while he was brewing tea for the morning and he named him Luca. And when he went home, he cooked some porridge that didn’t have any pepper because the tub was too high for him to reach, even with a chair. The next day, he’d pack some porridge for Luca.

Then the next next day, he would bring Luca home.

A week later, when he came home, he was hit with the aroma of mushroom stew and roasted mutton. But seeing his mother curled up with Luca and an open book hit him even harder.

His mother tends to the gardens now. He wants to keep here there, at home and far away from the old women and the whispers of sad cloaks. She's much happier there, with Luca and books and tea. And when he comes home with grass stains and a handful of daisies, she gets even happier.

-

The next year, he was old enough (12!) and big enough (he came up to his mother’s chest!) to ride Lily. Unfortunately, his mother refused to let him ride her alone. So every other week they’d journey to the neighboring towns by the plains with saddle bags filled with little baggies of tea and his mother’s porcelain tea set. Sometimes they’d spend an extra day in town to look at the sights you couldn’t find at the village.

His mother would smile and the crows feet next to her eyes crinkled with mirth and he had never been hit harder before.

She asked if lily of the valleys would look good next to the lavender. She told him all about the poppies peppered along the road, and described how they were the most vibrant shade of red (like a fire with crackling embers and licking flames. Like how cardamom and cinnamon sits heavy and warm in a cup of chai, like how violently I loved him before you were born), and he has never felt so full to burst.

And the people around town talked about the tea vendor that came every other week, perfuming the air with sweet florals and bitter tea leaves. The lady with the graying hair and crow feet eyes and the little boy trailing after. His mother smiled politely, they thanked her for the delicious tea. Then they’d bring loaves of bread and smoked ham, said they’d never had anyone grow tea in their village. It was something only the rich people had.

And his mother would laugh with the women who gossiped amongst each other. Then their husbands would come back from the mines and the farms and pick them up. He and his mother would go home and despite his asking of the wild flowers that swayed by Lily’s feet, she was silent the entire ride.

(They reached home. George went to gather the bags from Lily’s saddle when his mother scoops him into her arms.

‘You won’t leave me, will you George?’

‘You’re so silly, mum. I’m not going anywhere.’

‘That’s my flower bud. You’ll stay with mummy won’t you?’

‘I always will.’

She strokes his hair. Don’t leave me.

I won’t.)

-

He was fifteen when he went to the plain villages alone. Lily listens to him when he calls for a trot or a canter and doesn’t fuss when he ties her to a fence post. And when the tea runs out he heads home to a quiet house with Luca pawing at the door to his mother’s room.

It seems like she hasn’t come out today.

It felt like she wasn’t even home, even though she never left. He had never felt so lonely before.

(She left him, she’s not coming back. But she always does, she always does.)

The roasted chicken and reheated soup couldn’t get her to come out so he leaves them out and pets Luca until he eventually falls asleep, bottling the waves of emotions that crash onto his rocky shores.

-

He was old enough to be invited to the tavern with the other men of age in the village. Darryl asked if he was going tonight so he could prepare beverages suited to George’s palette. (George despised the ale and the beers the men chugged every fortnight. Darryl told him that he could have some of his mulled wine instead.)

But he declined. He said he needed to check on his mother. Maybe next week.

It was a surprise when his mother greeted him at the door just as he opened the fence gate. She was wearing her beautiful embroidered dress with swirling designs of climbing vines and carnations, a dress only reserved for special occasions. On her lips was the broadest smile he has ever seen.

“Oh George,” her voice is wispy and breathless, eyes glassy, “I had the most wonderful dream! So wonderful I slept until noon! I didn’t even need to drink a sleeping draught!

I saw him.”

“Who?”

“Oh silly, your father! He was just as dashing as I remember. I’m sorry you couldn’t be there to talk to him. He had so many things to say to you! He says he loves us so much and he can’t wait to come back!”

George didn’t know what sank faster, his bag that had slipped from his fingers or his stomach. He surges forward and takes her face into his hands. Her face wasn’t feverish and she was definitely not sleepwalking. She calls out his name questioningly but he doesn’t let her go.

“Mum, are you okay?”

“Oh George, Of course I’m okay! More than okay even! I feel spectacular!”

Her eyes are still wrinkled, her mouth has the faintest of lines, her eyes glazed over with emotions that confuse George. Dread fills the pit of his stomach.

“Mum. I don’t think you’re alright. Why don’t we go in and I’ll brew you some tea, yeah? Chamomile sounds lovely right now.”

“Oh, yes it does George! I knew I raised you right!”

He didn’t quite understand what was happening, but he did know his mother had gone insane. It’s been twenty years since his father died, surely enough time to heal from it? But recovery was different for everyone. Maybe his mother just took a long time and it was just starting to hit her now? Twenty years was a long time.

The kettle boiled like the thoughts in his mind. Steam and the scent of floral chamomile filled the air as he poured the steeped tea into two ceramic cups. They warmed his hand in reassurance.

“Mum…” he hands her a cup that she takes graciously, “why don’t you tell me about your dream?”

She takes a sip before she launches avidly into her retelling. “It was in a flower forest, the place where we first met. He said that he was waiting for me here and was so glad I finally came to see him! He didn’t seem any different than when I last saw him, handsome face and all. You have his eyes you know, a light tawny brown that glowed in the sun. I told him all about you and how much you’ve grown. He was so surprised that you’re already taller than me! Oh, it must have been his genes, he was quite tall.

“And then we spent hours talking. Well, it was more of me telling him what he’s missed. He said from what I’ve told him, he already loved you. A brilliant young man you’ll grow up to be, he said. And the flowers were like the flowers in our garden. And we were surrounded in a luscious forest. How I wish I could have stayed in that dream forever!”

She was looking at something far away. She looked like she was somewhere else entirely. George was scared.

But he had never seen his mother so happy in the last ten years. Her smile was intoxicating and he wanted to ignore the part of him that screamed how wrong everything about her was. She’s been lost in her grief but maybe he can let her have this. It may be fleeting, it may not be real, but his mother deserved to be happy for a while. (She’s come back, but she’s different now) So he continued to indulge in her fantasy.

“What was dad like, mum?”

And she spoke as if the universe revolves around the miner man who fell too fast for the gypsy girl from across the ocean, who built a house for his wife and unborn child. How he hung the stars and watered the budding tea bushes and came back home coughing soot into her mouth and leaving coal marks into her skin.

“You are just like him, you know? Strong, independent. He moved away from his parents the moment he could and came to this town to build a life he would be proud of. He took care of me, just like you do.

Maybe tonight, you can meet him and see for yourself how much of him you are.”

She gets up and retires to bed. The tea at the bottom of the pot is bitter with flower bits and grit. She looked like she was eager to hide away in her sleep.

-

Fall bleeds into winter and now his mother was only awake for six hours a day. It was like she was hibernating. It was like she’d rather sleep than spend time with the son she said she loved.

Winter meant lackluster leaves and unblooming flowers. They had dried leaves in storage so he continues to brew tea to warm the stomachs of the village people. And when he comes home, his mother would have been awake for a while and tells him all about her most recent dream.

And it pains him to see his mother so unbelievably happy from something that isn’t even real.

The deeper winter gets, the less she seems to be able to sleep. She tells him that the flower garden she spends all her time in is starting to wilt. His father talks less, she says. His eyes are gaunt and his skin is pale, the soot from the mines cling to him every time he comes to the garden and it bogs her lungs down. His mother has bags as deep as her frowns that no tea can make better.

It looks like she's been having nightmares.

One night, he woke up to a sound. He checks up on his mother and she's twisting and turning in her bed. She mutters about masks and antlers and smiling faces, daggers in mouths, daggers on hands. Black as coal and green eyeshine.

George thinks the chamomile with two tablespoons of sleeping draught will help, but he’s starting to think sleep might not be the best thing for her.

-

When the village is covered in a thick layer of snow, they stay in. The shops are empty and the chimneys puff wispy grey smoke. His mother has taken to drinking lavender tea on the porch, usually with Luca on her lap. She strokes his back with the warm ceramic because she knows if she was inside, the grey tabby would be curled up next to the fireplace.

She watches the woods. Their house was the closest to the forest at the bottom of the mountain. The dark woods break the expanse of white snow, like a line between heaven and hell, living and death. The tree line was far away but it looked like his mother could see through the dead trees and into the misty beyond.

Sometimes he would sit with her. And on the good days, she would sometimes tell stories.

Stories from her hometown, a warm desert across the ocean. They had temples much like the town’s church, but made out of cream sandstone carved with designs of creatures from their myths. If a person were to die and they had no family to inherit their belongings, they were placed inside the temple in hopes that it will guide them to a happy afterlife. When her family crossed the sea, all their belongings that they couldn’t bring were placed in the temple.

He asked her if she ever wanted to go back home.

She smiled at him, a broken and wiry thing. She said that her home was buried underneath that temple, long gone never to return. Her home, before George was born, was buried underneath the rubble, never to return to her. And now her home was him, and Luca, and Lily, and the gardens.

‘One day,’ she said, looking out into the woods, ‘you’ll bury this home too, just as I buried mine in the desert and in the rubble. One day I won’t be home to you anymore, not truly. And when that does happen, whatever becomes your home, cherish it’.

-

She mumbles about a smiling face just as he tucks her into bed. A smiling face so happy, it wanted her to be happy.

‘Soon, soon,’ she says, ‘I will be happy soon.’

-

One night, he wakes up to nothing. It is quiet, dauntingly so. His mother has stopped mumbling in the night. He gets up to check on her, slipping on a thick winter jacket. The firewood must have gone out in the night or maybe this was the day the old heater gave out. Either way, perhaps his mother got up to get more blankets.

Luca jumps off the bed with him and pads along. He takes a candle from a table on the hallway and lights the wick.

He stills. His mother’s door is wide open. The sheets are rumpled, as if she had gotten out of bed. But her coat rests on the chair by the dresser and her slippers sit askew at the side of her bed.

He checks the whole house and nothing. Not a single strand of chestnut hair nor the flutter of a white nightgown.

But the front door is open, letting snow into the foyer.

And there were faint tracks leading into the forest.

And his mother was gone.

(She left him. She's not coming back. But she always does.

She always does.)

-

It must have been the wind, it must have been the cold. It must have been the snow falling down from the heavens. But from the corner of his eye, he swears he sees chestnut brown hair and a fluttering white nightgown disappearing into the tree line.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very lightly beta-ed. If you see any grammatical errors, continuation errors, plot holes, and confusing narratives please let me know. :DDDD


	2. Wake me up (for I am dreaming)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> George dreams of ever shifting things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this took a while. I've been trying to reach my regular beta reader but she hasn't be on for a while so I suppose we're going un-beta'd bois. Also school has been sapping the motivation out of me :DDDD

‘She always does. She always does. She always does.’

The mantra sticks to him as he gathers all the torches he could find in the house. He grabs the axe by the back door at the last minute before he races out the snow covered foyer and into the unforgiving winter. 

The snow is thick and heavy. His boots sink deep into the white but he stops caring now that he’s halfway to the treeline. As he reaches the rotting tree, he stares into the forest. 

It’s quiet, save for his ragged breaths and roaring blood. Only howling winds and flurrying snow. 

He stares into the forest. He feels the forest stare back. 

A torch is lit (he’s starting to shake. That’s bad isn’t it?) and he marches past the treeline. Past heaven and hell, past living and death. 

-

Going into the forest was like going into a room full of mirrors. Everything looks the same; hundreds of dead rotting trees, dirty packed snow, and wispy fog. It’s quiet. The only thing he can hear was the crunching of snow under his unlaced boots, the blazing torch, his ragged breath and rushing blood under his frozen skin. There were no animals skittering across the forest. They were either hibernating or dead. 

No matter where he turned, it seemed like he wasn’t getting anywhere. No matter how much he walked, it seemed like he was sinking into the snow, disappearing under the cold and white. It was getting harder and harder to walk. To move the fingers wrapped around his torch, to wiggle the toes in his boots. It was getting harder to breathe. 

There's rustling to his left. Chestnut brown and fluttering white. He turns and runs and nothing. 

There’s a whisper to his right. His name in the tune of his mother's breathy voice. He turns and runs. 

And nothing. 

He runs and runs and runs. And nothing.

Everywhere he turns he sees chestnut and fluttering white in the corner of his eye or he hears a faint whisper of his name in a breathy voice. And antlers like dead rotting branches. And bone white amidst black coal. It felt like he was being chased. 

He doesn’t see the tree root and he trips. The torch in his left and the axe in his right falls with a dull thud.

He was so tired. He was so cold. Were his fingers blue? They certainly felt blue, and stiff, and icy. But he needed to keep going. What if his mother was out there all alone, blue and stiff and icy. His mother wouldn’t survive for much longer. He needed to take her home, sit her down next to the blazing hearth and warm her with tea. He needed to find her. 

He needed to find her. She was out there. But she left him. 

Stop. She always comes back. 

He can’t get up, he was so cold. 

He stays down, laid upon a mattress of soft white. He closes his eyes to her chestnut hair and her fluttering white nightgown and her smiling face. And her black antlers and gold eyeshine.

‘George?’

‘George?’

‘George.’

-

‘George.’

‘George!’

“George!”

He feels Nick’s voice before he hears it. It pounds at the walls of his head. Then he hears the tremor in his voice. 

“Nick, he’s awake! We need to bring him to the cottage and warm him up. He must have gotten frostbite.”

Darryl’s voice, softer, more soothing, but just as tremulous carries softly in the white static in his ears. He cracks his eyes open and sees the world just as white as it was before. But he was not surrounded by dead evergreen and rotting pine. He is just out of the treeline, along the path that leads into the woods. 

A road made but never travelled. 

His body jossles. His face is buried in Nick’s ratty white tunic and he’s being carried down the road toward his house. 

He lets his eyes slip shut once again. 

-

Darryl must have gotten better at brewing tea. It was fragrant and didn’t smell burnt or over steeped. The room is warm and soft and it makes his stomach drop.

He wasn’t supposed to be warm and soft. He was supposed to be finding his mother.

His stomach twists itself into knots. Anxiety coils from deep inside and fills the empty spaces between his bones. Suddenly the gentle caress of the cotton blanket wrapped around him feels like maggots eating into his skin and the warmth of a distant flame feels like a burning itch that won’t go away. It feels like too much, it feels like his insides are pushing their way out, it feel like he’s drowning, he’s dying, oh god he’s dying

The blanket is torn away and his lungs fill with crisp air. His eyes snap open and he sees Nick.

“George!”

The hearth burns behind him. Chamomile and sweet persimmon scents the air. His mind is spiraling and his breathing shallows. It’s warm, it’s soft, and safe. It’s wrong.

“George?” 

Nick was never mild, always loud and rowdy and rambunctious. But now his voice was meek and the hand that cups his cheek is tender. 

“George, I need you to calm down and breathe. We’re in your house. You’re safe here.”

He’s wrong.

“Is he awake?”

Nick moves away and Darryl comes into view with a mug of tea. It takes a moment to register that he was giving him the cup. It was warmwrong. 

“George,” Darryl was always happy, always smiling. But now he was frowning, full of simmering rage and anger, “What were you doing in the forest? It’s the dead of winter. You should have known better! If Nick hadn’t found you when he did, you would have died.”

“Darryl, that’s enough. He’s been through hell already-”

“No, Nick! He was being a stupid idiot!” He turns back to him with eyes as hard as bedrock. “What were you doing there? What was so important you had to risk your life for it?!”

The lump in George’s throat made it hard to answer. The longer the silence grew, the more Darryl stewed in silent fury, the more worried Nick became. The longer George can deny what he woke up to. 

But the anger swells somewhere deep within him, something selfish and cruel. Darryl didn’t have the right to be this angry. He wasn’t the one who lost a mother. 

“I woke up to the front door open. There were tracks heading to the forest. The snow had almost covered it, but I saw them.” George gritter out through his teeth.

“What?”

“Mum was gone. She left her coat and her shoes.” 

Nick and Darryl shared a look of concern. But George paid them no mind, instead he was watching the steaming cup grow tepid and cold. His hand had the slightest tremble. From anger, from sadness, he couldn’t decide. 

“We need to go back out there. Maybe she found a cave to take shelter in. I...I didn’t see a body while I was out there. Maybe…”

“George. If she was out there she would have died of hypothermia. She’s been out longer than you have and you were on the brink when we found you,” Darryl looks into George’s eyes, glassy and void and so confused. It was tragic, like looking at hissing dynamite ready to explode, like a cracking glass foundation under a cobblestone house. 

“She’s probably dead—”

“She can't be! I saw her! I heard her! Just before I passed out I swear I saw her! She can’t be fucking dead!”

“George, it was probably your mind playing tricks on you. And even if she was out there, we can’t just march into the forest. We’ll freeze to death before we find her.” Nick reasons from beside him. The weight of his hand on George’s shoulder should feel comforting but it doesn’t. 

“But I swear. I swear I saw her. You have to believe me.”

It must have been the desperation in his voice, the defeat in his eyes, but they shared a look and sighed. 

“We’ll talk to the village. I’m sure the hunters can do something about it.” Darryl says with a reassuring smile. “For now, you should get some rest. We’ll stay here to keep you company if you want, or you can stay with either of us. You know our doors are open, no matter what.” Darryl nudges the cup, urging him to drink. 

It was still warm. He wanted to throw it. 

But he drinks the entire cup in two gulps and excuses himself to bed, turning down dinner. He says he wouldn’t be able keep it down, which is mostly true. The heat from the burning fire place circulates into his room and he feels warm. He opens the window all the way and lets in the biting winter. 

He crawls into his bed and cries. 

He shouldn’t feel warm and safe. He doesn’t deserve it. 

-

“Now tell us, George. What happened exactly?”

Darryl and Nick had rallied the older men of the village into the tavern. The fireplace was roaring and the men had mugs on hand but the air was solemn. It must have been apparent that something grim had happened from the pitying looks sent their way. 

George looks down at his warm cup, swallowing the growing lump in his throat. “Mother, she was growing ill. She started off with hallucinations, dreamt of things that weren’t real and tricking her mind that it was. She...she said things about my dad. How he was alive and well. Then they started getting worse. She would have night terrors, horrible ones, ones that don’t go away with sleeping draughts. She would scream into the night and when she woke up, she wouldn’t be the same.

Then one night she was completely quiet. No screams, no mumbles. I woke up to check on her and she was gone. She left her coat and her shoes and the front door was open and there were tracks leading into the woods and I ran after her and—“

Two gentle hands on the small of his back stop him in his track. George takes a deep breath. 

“You’re telling us that she ran into the woods?”

George nods solemnly.

Nick’s father, the man who was asking most of the questions, was a strict man but empathised to the plight of those in need. He raised his son to be much the same, headstrong but kind, stubborn but caring. He gazed at the rest of the hunters. His face is dour and George stills.

“George, we loved your mother. She was an amazing tea maker and an integral part of our community. We don’t mean any harm nor disrespect, but you have to understand that it’s hard to believe that she’s still alive. It’s the dead of winter and she’s been gone for an entire night.” George moves but Nick’s father settles a large hand on his shoulder. “We’ll have search parties scour the shallows of the forest. But we can’t risk anyone else going too deep.

We’ll do our best to find her.”

“I’ll help.”

“No. Nick told me you got frostbite when you went looking for your mother. You need to stay here where it’s safe. You two,” He looks at his son and Darryl. “Look out for him.”

“C’mon you little muffins.” Darryl ushers the two younger boys out the tavern. “Let’s let them get to it.”

-

“It was only a matter of time.”

“Do you think the kid caught it too?”

“I guess only time will tell. Perhaps it runs in the family.”

-

George knew deep down, they were right. But he ignored it. He stopped thinking about the empty room, he stopped looking at the garden through the window, and felt nothing when he used her tea set. That’s what it was. He felt nothing.

He was glad. It felt easier, to ignore she wasn’t gone, to ignore what she was, what she’s done to him. 

Nick talks to him, or well, tries to. Slow and gentle, as if talking to a skittish animal ready to bolt at any second. Speaks mildly, choosing his words as if choosing which knife to carve a chicken. He asks about what he’s feeling, how they can help. To speak about his feelings. 

What feelings? He felt nothing. 

But he knows his friends’ hearts were in the right places. It was just hard. If he spoke about it then it would be true. 

He hoped his mother would come back. But he was scared of what would happen if she did. She was going mad before she left. Would she come back just as mad? Perhaps even more so?

Would she come back different? The thought nestled into his stomach until it curled around vital things. 

“George? You shouldn’t be sitting out here. The fireplace is still burning, you could be sitting there. And you should’ve brought a winter coat with you, it’s fucking freezing.”

George looks up from his seat on the porch that overlooks the treelines. He strokes Luca’s fur, thick with his winter coat. But he does silently apologize for petting him with icicles for fingers. Luca always was too lazy to complain about anything.

“Come on, come inside. We can help Darryl make some mutton and mushroom stew. Maybe we can bake some bread too.” Nick shoots a weak attempt of a smile to help lighten the mood. George is forced to return something just as fragile.

“You know...we’re always here. If you want to talk about it.”

“I know, Nick.” Everything about him has been fragile recently. But he wished his friends could pretend he wasn’t, just for a while. He wanted people to treat him normally so that maybe he could believe everything was normal.

With one last glance to the shadowy depths of the forest, George stands up and follows Nick inside.

-

Darryl suggests sleeping draughts when they hear him mumbling in the night. It reminds him of the two tablespoons and chamomile tea. 

He agrees because it didn’t matter if he was awake or asleep, he’d still be plagued by her chestnut hair and fluttering white nightgown. 

-

He wakes up in a beautiful meadow. It looked like it was on the verge of transitioning into the winter. The dew gathered on leaves were cold and frosty. There were odd piles of slush on the grassy ground. But the flowers, or what was left of them, still bloomed brilliantly. Clusters of hellebores and honeyworts mixed with bushes of alyssums dotted the forest clearing.

It started snowing. His breaths come out as puffs of mist. In the corner of his eyes he sees the flowers slowly wilting.

The ground was getting darker. The slush piles were now ugly and grey. George holds his hand out and black specks pepper his pale skin. 

Everything was dead or dying. The black snow (the soot) was starting to pile up. On the surface were imprints of clawed feet. They looked like the tracks the local pack of wolves that ventured in the forest in the spring leave behind when they come before the end of winter. 

The trees (dead and rotting) had deep scratch marks. Like tusks of a hungry boar, like imprints of deadly antlers. There were patches of bloody fur on the snow (too black to be snow).

He sees a broken down mine entrance. Beside it was a stack of rocks and a pot with a single poppy. It was brown and disgusting but his mother had always gushed about it’s brilliant pigment (he remembers crackling embers, cardamom and cinnamon). And on the ground was a nightgown stained ugly and brown.

\- 

It’s a dream it’s a dream it’s a dream it’s a dream

-

“Darryl, I’m worried. George hasn’t been sleeping. And...I think he’s been throwing out the tea you give him every night.”

“We need to make sure he drinks the tea. It isn’t a good thing to stay up all night. He needs to rest.”

“Yeah, I agree with you! But I think he needs more than rest. I’ve tried talking to him but I don’t want to upset him.”

“He...he just needs time. And rest. All we can do is make sure he gets enough of it.”

George shudders from behind the door. He’ll be back there, in the cold dying meadow, with his mother’s brown stained nightgown and sooty air.

There was a knock on the door. Nick and Darryl come in with small smiles to give him his evening tea and bid him a good night. It’s bitter and tastes like mud and dread.

-

The wind is cold. He puffs out mist. The clearing is dying. The sky is crying black. The ground is bleeding brown.

In random clusters bloomed bushes of roses and gladiolus. Ugly brown like specks of blood.

The trees are even more battered, large and deep gashes all along the trunk. The bark of some of the trees have been rubbed raw, leaving the white wood below.

There’s rustling behind him. He turns and sees a fluttering nightgown.

-

“Darryl, he’s getting worse! I can hear him crying in the other room. I hate hearing him like this! We need to do something!”

“What do you suggest we do Nick! I-I can’t think of anything other than adding more sleeping draught, maybe changing the type of soothing tea.” Darryl stutters. He hesitates with what he wants to say but he says them anyway. “I might know something that’ll help. But...there’s no guarantee.”

“Anything to help George.” It’s painful to listen to Nick’s voice thick with grief.

-

The clearing is dead. Nothing is growing. Everything is dying. And George stands in the middle of it all. He feels like he’s dying.

A howl echoes from somewhere in the forest. The sound of rustling foliage and snapping branches reverberate through the quietness and it shatters George’s bones. It sounds like rabid animals fighting. Growls, huffs, grunts, the sound of tearing flesh and snapping jaws. 

George is fucking terrified. He doesn’t know where they were, he doesn’t know if he’s safe in the clearing. It sounded like all the sounds were coming from all directions, it sounded like they were closing in on him, it sounded like death had been watching him and thought finally, finally. 

He stands stricken in the center of the clearing. Was he just waiting for death? Was he waiting to wake up? It's a dream his mind whispers. But the air against his skin is cold, the crunch of snow under his feet feels real. 

There’s a loud crack, a wet rip and the sound of gushing liquid. Something thuds heavily to the ground.

Suddenly it’s quiet. Dread pools in his gut. It’s quiet. 

But the shadows curl around the edges of his eyes. The wind picks up and whistles. There's a soft crunching noise if he strains his hearing. And underneath all that there’s heaving breathing. 

There’s a mist that has rolled in. Like a foreboding sign, like a premonition. 

The breathing is heavier. The hairs at the back of his neck stand on end. It was behind him, whatever it was. 

Death had come for him finally, finally. 

It snorts heavy and hot behind him and he whips around to see shaggy dark fur, long gangly arms, great twisted branching antlers, and a white smiling face. The antlers and bone white mask were covered in gore, the maw underneath dripping with rusty blood and entrails. Patches of fur were ripped off and oozing blood so thick it ran black. A cloud of asbestos and the acrid stench of brimstone clung heavy and dense. 

And bring glowing yellow eyeshine. 

And just behind the hulking mass was a body torn to shreds, clad in a nightgown drenched in brown blood. 

-

“I don’t think your teacher’s gonna approve of this.”

Darryl had left the cottage bright and early and had come back late in the night. Nick said he went out to get some stuff that would hopefully help with the nightmares. Nick told him not to worry but when Darryl came back with a grimoire the size of a chopping board and a bag full of things that smelled of earth, it was hard to keep the coiling apprehension at bay. 

“Well it’s a good thing he doesn’t know about this”

They were all sitting on the floor around the fireplace with Darryl facing directly in front of the burning hearth. He began rummaging into the bag and pulled out four small clay pots; one with a single stalk of evening primrose, oxeye daisy, sage, and what seems to be a small nub of turmeric. He also pulls out a coil of twine, feathers, other bits and bobs he couldn’t make out and a bunch of dried herbs.

George doesn’t really know what these things mean and judging from the bewildered but passive expression, neither does Nick. But they both insisted (Nick more so than Darryl) that this would help with his sleeping troubles.

“This isn’t anything bad is it, Darryl?” As much as George wanted to be rid of the nightmares, he didn’t want the bespeckled boy to get in trouble. 

“My teacher...isn’t fond of the magic in nature. He prefers the ancient tomes and alchemy. He says nature is too unpredictable, too sporadic to control, so he never bothers to use it.” Darryl gestures to the thick grimoire. The cover was a deep burgundy and fraying at the edges, with swirling leaf designs and a title written in foreign runes, much like the runes on the regular tomes Darryl and his teacher used. 

“But I found this in the attic a while back and started studying it. I found a section on dream afflictions, those that are too strong to be cured with sleeping draughts.” He opens the book to a bookmarked page. On it, were drawings of plants and what looked to be a woven circle with a design in the middle with dangling feathers and beads. “It says that severe dream afflictions can be caused by a conflict of the natural element in the surroundings. What happened a couple weeks ago must have tipped the balance of nature. This will hopefully realign everything and keep the conflicting elements at bay, at least within the house, so you can sleep better.”

“Well, it's worth a try.” Anything to keep his mind away from blood stained nightgowns and matted chestnut hair. 

Darryl instructed the two other boys to take the four potted plants and place them on window sills facing the four cardinal directions. Primrose to the north; for protection, oxeye daisy to the east; for prosperity, sage to the south; as a ward against evil, and turmeric to the west; as a tether to the earth. The house didn’t have many windows to keep the warmth in during winter but they made due. Thankfully, they avoided the window in his mother’s room. It was probably still open. He could hear the loud whistling of the wind and the subtle rattle of the window.

Hunkered down in front of the hearth with the grimoire and twine at his side, Darryl began to weave. Under his breath he read the foreign inscriptions, an odd rolling tongue, as he worked the twine into thick braids. A small pot had been put atop the hearth filled with dry herbs that smoked and perfumed the air. George and Nick came back just as Darryl was half way through, a circle of thick twine with a half finished design in the center.

The bespeckled boy pointedly ignored them as he continued to mutter and weave. It must be some sort of ritual that shouldn't be broken. The smoke coming from the pot fogged the room. He inhaled deep and felt the bitter burn of sage and a hint of fragrant rosemary. George looked on as Darryl’s fingers deftly worked on the twine, weaving and threading, nimble and meticulous. His voice was soft but the words his tongue forms were guttural and harsh, rolling in awkward waves with a cadence that lulls. 

“Beannaichte gu robh an dachaigh seo, gum bi iad a ’bruadar, nach tig olc sam bith às an cadal.”

The wind begins to howl. His chanting gets faster and louder, harsher as he finishes tying the last of the long colorful feathers from chickens and parrots. You could hear the groaning creeks of the dead trees bowing to the wind.

“Beannaichte gu robh an dachaigh seo, gum bi iad a ’bruadar, nach tig olc sam bith às an cadal.”

He abruptly stands up and casts the weaving into the pot, causing an eruption of smoke. The edges of the twine begin to burn.

The wind batters the house. The windows rattle and shake. The door sounds like it’ll collapse from the loosened hinges. The moon is shining, full and bright and whole in a cloudless night.

The smoke curls and stings his eyes, the edges of his vision vignettes. 

He breathes in smoke and soot. He hears antlers and tusks clack. He hears wood bend and break and snap, like bones, like limbs. He hears gushing. His head is spinning.

The ceiling is crying black. The floor is bleeding brown.

“Le cumhachd teine, ceò, talmhainn, a ’glanadh nan uilc a bhios. Beannaich an teallach agus an dachaigh, cuir às do na bèilich agus na tàmh. Gus an cridhe agus an inntinn a leigheas.”

The ringing in his ear stops, the antlers break away, the gold fades, and the white in the middle of the fire ceases to blind. The ceiling stops crying, the floor stops bleeding. He comes back to his living room in deceiving quietness.

“Are you okay?”

Darryl and Nick look at him with concern. That’s all they’ve worn on their face recently.

“I’m fine.”

Darryl fishes the woven twine from the hearth and passes to him. He instructs him to hang it on the window in his room. The nightmares will stop, hopefully, says the bespeckled boy. Nick ushers him into bed with the usual tea and less sleeping draught. It still tastes like mud and dread.

-

He sleeps and does not dream. He feels an odd sense of forbode. Something is missing.

-

George wakes up to Darryl, Nick, and his father in the living room, a steaming pot of tea hanging above the hearth. Nick, ever kind, pats the empty seat besides him and offers him a cup. It’s warm and it leaves him empty.

“We have news.”

Ah, the inevitable has come. He wishes he could stay suspended between conviction and disbelief. He wants to go back to sleep.

“The hunters have come back. They’ve scoured every inch of the shallows, but they turned out empty handed. We couldn’t find your mother’s body. I’m sorry.”

He wants to go back to sleep. He wants to wake up. He wants it to be a dream.

“We could arrange a funeral. The coffin will have to be empty but we can still perform the ceremony. Her spirit can rest. We can set up a headstone and I’ll even carve it out myself. I’ll have the Cleric handle the other necessities --- ..-. - .... . ceremony as well. -.-- --- ..- .-- --- -. ·----· - have to worry about any of it, George, we’ll handle .. - ..-. .-. --- -- .... . .-. . ·-·-·- .. ·----· -- ... --- .-. .-. -.-- ..-. --- .-. -.-- --- ..- .-. .-.. --- ... ... ·-·-·- ... .... . ·----· ... .. -. .- -... . - - . .-. .--. .-.. .- -.-. . ·-·-·-

What an odd thing it is, inevitability.

-

Everything is white. Stark and bleak and empty. Is it snowing? He can’t tell.

It is there. 

Right in front of him. 

But it is just like everything else, stark and bleak. White and black and gold. Daggers and claws and sharpened iron on whetstone. Eyes that glow like liquid gold from the depths of hell, fangs of bone white, fur of sooty black. Like the coal at the end of a torch, like the bottom of the pot that toasted the sage.

It reaches out to him and puts something in his hand.

It’s fur is soft.

-

Luca leads him to the porch. He follows dutifully with a warm cup of tea and a loaf of bread for breakfast.

He looks at the expanse of white in between his cabin and the treeline. A glimmer catches his eyes and he sees his forgotten axe half buried in the snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We finally meet Dream! kinda
> 
> All Scottish Gaelic was google translated im sorry :((((((
> 
> Beannaichte gu robh an dachaigh seo, gum bi iad a ’bruadar, nach tig olc sam bith às an cadal - Blessed be this home, may they dream, may no evil befall the sleeping  
> Le cumhachd teine, ceò, talmhainn, a ’glanadh nan uilc a bhios. Beannaich an teallach agus an dachaigh, cuir às do na bèilich agus na tàmh. Gus an cridhe agus an inntinn a leigheas. - With the power of fire, of smoke, of earth, cleans the evils that be. Bless the hearth and the home, banish the baleful and the restless. To cure the heart and mind.
> 
> This took a lot out of me so sorry if I messed some stuff up. Comment about them if you find any mistakes!


End file.
